Fans Feeling Quiet Confidence About Huskers Football

The rumbling about Nebraska football is out there. Not many are screaming from the rooftops, but you can see it, feel it, hear it.

You can read it, too — in the media, fans writing on message boards. You can hear it on talk radio. Fans are eagerly awaiting the 2025 season, one they believe will be a major step back to prominence for the Huskers, an exalted place many believe is rightfully theirs.

Calculations have been completed — likely wins and losses tallied. Hmmmm — the numbers keep coming up red. 7-6? That was for last year. Sure, there are a bunch of 50-50 games in 2025, but good teams win more than their share of them. Great teams win most of them.

In whispering tones, the optimistic ones go a step further. Could the Huskers earn a College Football Playoff slot. Is that a realistic goal? Or, fantasyland? Maybe, just maybe, they quietly say, the Huskers can sneak in the 12-team format.

Is that optimism justified? A poll in December had 57.6 percent of fans believing Nebraska would win at least eight games in 2025. That poll number went down to 54.8 percent in April.

No one knows how a college football season will play out, so we aren’t sure whether the Huskers will have the goods to qualify. It’s a major step — from 7-6 to a 10-2 record that likely is necessary.

The Huskers’ fan base, as enthusiastic as any in the country, has waited what feels like a lifetime to show such optimism. There has been one winning season — last season — since 2016. There has been one bowl game in that same time frame.

That 60-3 stretch in the mid-90s *is* a lifetime ago, a generation removed.

What should Huskers fans expect?

Are expectations unrealistic? Are they too high? Will 2025 be an orderly step that continues in the right direction? Are the Huskers still a year, or two, away from College Football Playoff glory?

Many fans have bought into a narrative of success, which is part of a fan’s bill of rights. Wanna be overly optimistic? That’s your right, and if that feeling gets dashed on a windy, cold Friday night in Minneapolis in October, well, that’s the bitter price you pay for being a fan.

Nebraska sets up with multiple preseason benefits — an improving quarterback, a full season under a creative offensive coordinator, a more talented roster than 2024, a schedule set up for success. Head coach Matt Rhule has won before, in other stops, with fewer resources than Nebraska.

But, still, only 12 teams make the playoffs. And you already know some of those teams — Ohio State, Penn State, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, probably. There will be at least one Big 12 team and one Group of Five team, another team or two from the SEC (LSU? Ole Miss?). From the Big Ten, expect a third team, at least.

That’s 10 teams, and that doesn’t account for any major surprises, as Indiana was last year.

Can Nebraska be that surprise team? Can Nebraska get off to that a great start, as its promising schedule dictates, generate momentum and ride that wave into a captivating, full season of success?

There is a quiet confidence in the heartland. You can feel it. Nebraska football is about two months away.

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